Creation and Redemption

Tishrei celebrates Creation, the birth of the world, indicative of the natural order. Nissan commemorates the miraculous Exodus from Egypt, or the supernatural. In human terms, when struggling with obfuscation of the natural, the key is recognize the dimension where the limitations of the natural order do not exist. In fact, the physical exists only so that we may demonstrate how it too exposes the Divine truth. And we recognize this, we can realize the supernatural even within the natural.

In 1940, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, delivered one of his very first discourses, after settling on American shores. Now for the first time, HaChodesh HaZeh L`Chem, an exploration of the mystical meaning of the Hebrew months of Tishrei and Nissan, has been eloquently translated into English.

Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the New Year, which also marks the creation of the physical, natural universe, is celebrated in the month of Tishrei. In Nissan, we commemorate the Exodus from Egypt, a supernatural phenomenon by which the Jewish people transcended all constraints of the natural order and thus achieved their redemption.

Creation and Redemption illuminates this mystical dynamic, expressed in terms of contraction and expansion, as it exists within the world at large, within the cycles of the year, and within each individual as well.